Last year, an off-duty police officer placed a 12-year-old girl in a prolonged, illegal chokehold while breaking up a fight at a Kenosha, Wisconsin, middle school. Now, the girl and her family are suing the officer, alleging that his actions constituted excessive force and unlawful arrest.
According to the lawsuit, filed Monday in the U.S. District Court of the Eastern District of Wisconsin, Shawn Guetschow, an off-duty Kenosha police officer working as a security guard at a local middle school, unlawfully restrained a 12-year-old girl while breaking up a fight that occurred last March. The complaint states that the sixth-grader—named only as Jane Doe—was acting in self-defense after being attacked by another student in the school's cafeteria. While attempting to break up the fight, Guetschow allegedly fell backward while holding onto Doe, hitting his head on a cafeteria table.
